to one side of
the ship, and one to the other side, preparatory to the work of cutting
in and trying out; that is, taking off the blubber or fat which
surrounds the body, and boiling it in huge caldrons on deck.

Walter eagerly examined the monsters which had been brought alongside.
They were sperm whales, which produce the oil so much valued for making
candles. The head, as it was lifted out of the water, looked very much
like the bottom end of a gigantic black bottle. This, the mate told
him, was called the snout, or nose, and formed one-third of the whole
length of the animal. At its junction with the body was a huge
protuberance, which the mate called the "bunch" of the neck; immediately
behind this was the thickest part of the body, which, from this point,
gradually tapered off to the tail, or "small." At this point was
another protuberance, of a pyramidal form, called the "lump," with
several other small elevations, denominated the "ridge." The end of the
small was not thicker than the body of a man; it then expanded into the
flukes, or, familiarly speaking, the tail,--the two flukes forming a
triangular fin somewhat like the tail of a fish, but differing from it
inasmuch as it was placed horizontally. The two flukes were about
twelve feet or rather more in breadth, and six or seven in length. The
whole animal was about eighty-four feet long, and the extreme breadth of
the body between twelve and fourteen feet; thus the whole of the
circumference did not exceed thirty-six feet. The mate said he had
seldom seen whales larger. Though the upper part of the head was very
broad, it decreased greatly below, so that it resembled somewhat the
cutwater of a ship; thus, as the animal when moving along the surface
raises its head out of the water, it is enabled to go at a great speed,
the sharp lower part of the jaw performing the service of the stem of a
ship. The mouth extended the whole length of the head, the lower jaw
being very narrow and pointed,--no thicker in proportion than the lid of
a box, supposing the box to be inverted. It had but a single blow-hole,
about twelve inches in length, resembling a long S in shape. In the
upper part of the head, the mate told him, there is a large
triangular-shaped cavity called the "case," which contains oil of great
lightness, thus giving buoyancy to the enormous head. This oil is the
spermaceti; and from the whale alongside, the mate said that probably no
less than